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'''Flemish red-brown beer''', also known as "Flanders red brown beer" or simply "Flemish brown beer" <ref name="lostbeers_1">[https://lostbeers.com/flemish-brown-red-or-red-brown/ "Flemish brown, red or red brown? How Michael Jackson invented a beer style out of thin air," by Roel Mulder. Retrieved 08/29/2020.]</ref><ref>[https://www.facebook.com/groups/MilkTheFunk/?post_id=3819410974753755&comment_id=3819670174727835&reply_comment_id=3821688484526004 Casey Wellman. Milk The Funk Facebook thread on Flemish Red-Brown beer. 08/30/2020.] </ref>, is a classic Belgian beer style that is currently produced only by a small handful of breweries in Flanders, Belgium today. Some breweries outside of Flanders and Belgium aim to produce comparable beers <ref name="snauwaert">[http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0168160515301896 Microbial diversity and metabolite composition of Belgian red-brown acidic ales. Isabel Snauwaert, Sanne P. Roels, Filip Van Nieuwerburg, Anita Van Landschoot, Luc De Vuyst, Peter Vandamme. 2015.]</ref>. These beers, red to brown in color, are characterized as being sour and sometimes sweet, with malt flavors and fruity complexity from the mixed fermentation and sometimes hints of oak. They have often been described as "wine-like". Non-Belgian beer writers, beginning with Michael Jackson, have split these beers into two categories: "Flanders Red Ale" and "Oud Bruin". with The the arguable distinction between these two has arguably been them being that "Flanders Red Ales" are generally brewed in West Flanders and are aged in oak, while "Oud Bruin" is generally aged in steel fermenters and brewed in East Flanders, and the "Oud Bruin" version is less acetic and more malty in flavor (. Before beer writer Michael Jackson wrote about these styles, Belgian brewers did not make no such the same distinctions. Today, some modern Belgian brewers see the distinction between these types of beers differently from Jackson and even amongst each other <ref>[https://www.belgiansmaak.com/ep043-oud-bruin-flanders-red-brown-flemish-sours/ Belgian Smaak podcast EP043 | Roundtable Discussion — Everything Oud Bruin, Flanders Red, and Flemish Sours. Feb 2023. Retrieved 02/27/2023.]</ref>(~50 mins in). Rodenbach, Brewery Verhaeghe, Liefmans, and De Brabandere are examples of some of the most well known Belgian producers <ref name="lostbeers_1" /><ref>[http://www.beerhunter.com/documents/19133-000217.html "Belgium's Great Beers". The Beer Hunter, Michael Jackson. 1999. Retrieved 01/27/2016.]</ref><ref>[http://www.bjcp.org/docs/2015_Guidelines_Beer.pdf 23B. BJCP 2016 Guidelines. Flanders Red Ale and 23C. Oud Ruin.]</ref>. Classic Belgian examples have been flash pasteurized or sterile filtered and are not alive in the bottle<ref>[http://www.thebrewingnetwork.com/the-sour-hour-episode-9/ Rudy Ghequire from Rodenbach on the Sour Hour]</ref> (~35 minutes in) (also ref Mad Fermentationist dregs list). Belgian brewers are seeking to protect the term "Flemish Red Brown Beer"; see [[Flemish_Red_Brown_Beer#Protection_Seeking|Protection Seeking]] below.

* [httphttps://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03610470.2022.2109380 Dusart et al. (2022)] describes Rodenbach as being brewed using a portion of highly kilned Vienna or Crystal malt, along with 20% maize. The maize is cooked in a cereal cooker for gelatinization before being added to the main mash. The wort is boiled for a "prolonged" time period, which results in good protein coagulation and is thought to contribute to the minimal amount of foam in the finished beer. "Old" hops are used to reach no more than 10 IBU. The wort is then fermented in epoxy lined tanks for 5-6 weeks before being transferred to large wooden vat to age (see [[Flemish_Red-Brown_Beer#Microbes_and_Flavor_Compounds|Microbes and Flavor Compounds]] below) <ref name="Dusart_2022">[https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03610470.2022.2109380 Alexandre Dusart, Jean-Paul Ryckaert & Sonia Collin (2022) Comparative Investigation of Flavors in Red and Brown Flemish Beers: Key-Role of Brettanomyces and Torrefied Malts in Ethylphenols Occurrence, Journal of the American Society of Brewing Chemists, DOI:10.1080/03610470.2022.2109380.]</ref>.  Liefmans Goudenband is brewed with all barley, including a small fraction of torrefied malt, and is then fermented in open copper tanks for one week at 20–24°C. The open-air fermentation exposes the wort to an uncontrolled inoculation of lactic acid bacteria, acetic acid bacteria, and wild yeasts. After this primary fermentation, the beer is transferred to stainless steel tanks to age for at least three months. The stainless steel tanks limits exposure to oxygen, which results in less acetic acid production compared to Rodenbach's beer that is aged in oak casks. The aged beer is then blended with young fresh beer and pasteurized to prevent further attenuation by ''Brettanomyces'' <ref name="Dusart_2022" />. The sour flavor of both Liefmans and Rodenbach comes from lactic acid and acetic acid. Oak aged Rodenbach contains 2500-5000 mg/L of lactic acid and around 1500 mg/L of acetic acid. Liefmans contains similar levels of lactic acid, but only around 1000 mg/192L of acetic acid due to the stainless steel aging process.185This results in beer that is perceived as less acidic compared to the oak aged Rodenbach beer <ref name="Dusart_2022" />.42Compared to lambic, the aged red-brown beers have more lactic acid and acetic acid than younger lambic (perhaps due to a higher hop dosage in lambic production), but less than aged bottles of lambic (see [[Spontaneous_Fermentation#Aroma_and_Flavor_Production|Spontaneous Fermentation]]).233 See also:* [http:/lambic_digest/1996brewery.org/library/846Rodnbch.txt html "For brewery Rodenbach." Peter Bouckaert. Lambic Digest. April 1996.]

While most beer styles are fermented using a monoculture of ''Saccharomyces cerevisiae'' or ''S. pastorianus'', Flanders Red Ales are fermented with a [[Mixed Fermentation|mixed culture fermentation]]. At one brewery (presumed to be Rodenbach) studied by Martens et al.(1997) and then later by Dusart et al. (2022), two beers were produced using mixed fermentation and blended together. The first "light beer" was 11°P and was less acidic, while the second "heavy beer" was 13°P and served aged unblended as an Old Ale. Both beers were inoculated with an acid washed yeast slurry that was harvested from a previous fermentation of the "light beer". The yeast slurry contained about 5% lactic acid bacteria after the acid wash. The fermentation of these beers had three stages<ref name="Martens">[http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/j.2050-0416.1997.tb00939.x/abstract MICROBIOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF A MIXED YEAST—BACTERIAL FERMENTATION IN THE PRODUCTION OF A SPECIAL BELGIAN ACIDIC ALE. H. Martens, D. Iserentant andH. Verachtert. 1997.]</ref><ref name="Dusart_2022" />: # A seven day ethanol fermentation at 21°C dominated by ''Saccharomyces''(also present was lactic acid bacteria which was kept to a minimal population due to the acid washing process). After this seven day fermentation, the yeast is harvested and washed for the next brew <ref name="Dusart_2022" />. # A four to five week lactic acid fermentation at 15–21 °C in epoxy-covered tanks dominated by ''Lactobacilli''<ref name="Dusart_2022" />. # A The 11°P "light beer" is then blended with aged Old Ale, pasteurized, and packaged (1/3 young "light beer" to 2/3 Old Ale), while the 13°P "heavy beer" is transferred to large wooden vats (foeders). At Rodenbach, this blended and pasteurized product is the Rodenbach Grand Cru <ref name="Dusart_2022" />.# The "heavy beer", which becomes Old Ale, is then aged for a twenty to twenty-four month period of time. During this time, the beer undergoes a long and slow fermentation that is dominated by ''Brettanomyces'', ''Lactobacilli'', ''Pediococcus'', and acetic acid bacteria (''Acetobacter''). Most of the aged Old Ale is blended with fresh "light beer", but a small amount is packaged unblended as "Rodenbach Vintage" <ref name="Dusart_2022" />.

The development of the third stage with ''Brettanomyces'' and ''Pediococcus'' was similar to the development of these microbes in [[Lambic]] fermentation. The "light beer" was never allowed to go through the third phase of fermentation, and was instead chilled to 0°C and then used to blend with previous batches of the "heavy beer" and then pasteurized during packaging for stability <ref name="Martens">[http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/j.2050-0416.1997.tb00939.x/abstract MICROBIOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF A MIXED YEAST—BACTERIAL FERMENTATION IN THE PRODUCTION OF A SPECIAL BELGIAN ACIDIC ALE. H. Martens, D. Iserentant andH. Verachtert. 1997.]</ref>.

A more recent study by Snaewaert et al. (see reference <ref name="snauwaert"></ref>) looked at the microbial and metabolic composition in the finished beer of the same brewery as Martens et al., as well as two other Flemish red-brown beer breweries using "state of the art" DNA sequencing methods. Three samples were analyzed (A, B, and C) from each brewery (1, 2, and 3). As expected, there were both similarities and differences between the three breweries tested, as well as some differences between the individual beers from each brewery. See [[Flemish_Red-Brown_Beer#Microbial_Populations|Microbial Populations]] below.  In 2022, Dusart et al. analyzed and compared flavor compounds of a bottle of 2015 Rodenbch Vintage, a 2021 bottle of Rodenbach Grand Cru, and a 2021 bottle of Liefmans Goudenband, using solvent-assisted flavor evaporation (SAFE) and static headspace analysis, followed by GC-MS analysis. They also included n-Hexanol extraction of short-chain fatty acids and HPLC analysis of iso-alpha acids <ref name="Dusart_2022" />. See [[Flemish_Red-Brown_Beer#Rodenbach_vs_Liefmans_Analysis|Rodenbach vs Liefmans Analysis]] below.

The BJCP breaks this style into two separate categories; see category [http://www.bjcp.org/docs/2015_Guidelines_Beer.pdf 23B. Flanders Red Ale and 23C. Oud RuinBruin].